List Price: $1,099,000The Property: Unlike ostentatious new houses that flaunt their thousands of square feet with soaring roofs and phallic turrets, this Cape Cod–style house in Wilmette is a classic 1950s exercise in self-restraint, with a taupe exterior and a sheltered porch. The broad, low-hanging roof suggests a modest house huddles beneath, but, in fact, there are…">

On The Market—Spacious Cape Cod in Wilmette

List Price: $1,099,000The Property: Unlike ostentatious new houses that flaunt their thousands of square feet with soaring roofs and phallic turrets, this Cape Cod–style house in Wilmette is a classic 1950s exercise in self-restraint, with a taupe exterior and a sheltered porch. The broad, low-hanging roof suggests a modest house huddles beneath, but, in fact, there are…

By Dennis Rodkin

Published July 17, 2008

Walk through the six bedroom Wilmette home with Dennis.

On the Market—Spacious Cape Cod in Wilmette

List Price: $1,099,000The Property: Unlike ostentatious new houses that flaunt their thousands of square feet with soaring roofs and phallic turrets, this Cape Cod–style house in Wilmette is a classic 1950s exercise in self-restraint, with a taupe exterior and a sheltered porch. The broad, low-hanging roof suggests a modest house huddles beneath, but, in fact, there are six bedrooms, a sizable living room, and, including the basement, about 3,500 square feet of space in all.

The house is in the very attractive Indian Hill section of Wilmette, where picture book–pretty houses line the blocks, and an excellent school and a nice park are close at hand. This house was built in 1953 on a corner lot big enough that “the kids can play 9 holes out there,” says seller Julie Tanaka, who with her husband, Bob, has owned the house for four years.

Inside, the six bedrooms are divided—three on the first floor and three on the second. Each trio has one big enough to serve as the master bedroom, although the potential master on the second floor does not have a private bathroom. Worth noting: Unlike most Cape Cods, there are no dormers set into the roof, so on the second floor, windows are only at the ends of the house.

The living room is a large, daylit space that opens to the dining room and a sunny family room that was created by enclosing a breezeway. The kitchen has distinctive two-tone cabinets and leads out to a cheery dining patio in the slender but nicely landscaped back yard (the bulk of the land is in front of and beside the house).

Monica Childs, the sellers’ agent, calls the basement “super-sized.” Like the rest of the house, it’s full of storage closets and nooks, plus it’s got a fireplace.

Price Points: The Tanakas, who are building a new house elsewhere in the neighborhood, bought this one in September 2004 for $1 million, and then painted the interior in a soothing palette, carpeted several rooms (the floors are hardwood in the living and dining rooms), and made other cosmetic improvements.

They listed the house for sale in April for $1.149 million, and in June cut that to the current list price of $1.099 million. Two other houses in the immediate neighborhood have sold for about that price this year. Last year, three sold for $1.5 million and up, but they were new and, of course, obvious about their considerably larger size.